Using Video Analysis to Assess the Communication Behaviours of Children Who are Minimally Verbal: A Scoping Review

Children who are minimally verbal (MV) have high support needs but are significantly under-researched. These children are at increased risk of behaviours of concern, reduced access to education and are more vulnerable to abuse and neglect. A significant barrier in providing support to minimally verbal children is the obtaining an in-depth understanding of their communication profiles and needs. Currently, there is no empirically tested and validated assessment method to comprehensively evaluate the communication behaviours of minimally verbal children. A multi-faceted and comprehensive assessment utilising appropriate tools that provide relevant and useful information is required, which involves input from both caregivers, educators and healthcare professionals. Video recordings of the children’s interactions with their caregivers or other communication partners allow clinicians to better understand their communication profiles by observing and analysing their nonverbal communication behaviours. The aim of this scoping review is to map existing literature to understand how videos are used to assess communication behaviours in children with minimal spoken language. After screening and reviewing the identified studies, data will be extracted and analysed using descriptive summaries and narrative synthesis. This scoping review will report: (1) the characteristics of the participants (for example, diagnoses, age, sex, country and ethnicity), (2) how environmental or external variables (such as location, communication partner) affect the results of the video assessment, (3) types of communication skills/ behaviours assessed using video analysis and how they were assessed, (4) the types of video content (for example, the structure of the interactions, the duration of the videos and whether there were opportunities for interaction with the videoer or the person in the video), (5) the number of studies used video recordings to assess the communication behaviours of minimally verbal children.